Women still feel annual mammogram exam necessary

After decades of hearing they should get mammograms every year, women got the message.

A new poll finds most women still feel yearly mammograms are appropriate despite warnings of false positives. (Photo courtesy of Creative Commons)

The problem is that the message has changed.

A new survey by NPR found that most women 40 and older believe they should have mammograms every year to screen for breast cancer. The poll was conducted in conjunction with Truven Health Analytics.

That finding, however, is at odds with the current recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that women with typical risks for breast cancer have screening mammograms only every two years starting at age 50 and until they turn 75.

The task force found there wasn’t enough evidence about the benefits from mammograms for women age 75 and up to make a recommendation. The task force found a small net benefit for biennial screening of women ages 40 to 49.

The tasks force’s recommendation for mammograms every two years after 50 came out in 2009 and sparked controversy. The recommendation also is contradicted by the American Cancer Society, which recommends women 40 and older”have a mammogram every year and should continue to do so for as long as they are in good health.”

The NPR-Truven Health poll found almost two-thirds of women ages 50 to 74 believe that they should have a mammogram annually. For women 40 to 49, the number drops to 56 percent. For women under 40, about 45 percent believe they should have a mammogram every year. Overall, 57 percent of women believe an annual mammogram is appropriate.

The concern is false positives.

Dr. Michael Taylor, Truven’s chief medical officer, was quoted in the NPR story saying women need more education about the problem of false positives.

“If you do mammography every year starting at 40, you’re going to find a lot of things that don’t matter,” he said.

Tweaking societal behavior isn’t easy especially after drilling the message into women’s heads for years that annual mammograms are necessary.

Dr. A. Mark Fendrick, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, told NPR, “It’s much much harder to take away something that you’re already doing than it is to start a behavior from time zero.”

“More isn’t always better,” he added.

The NPR-Truven Health Analytics Health Poll on mammograms was conducted in June. More than 3,000 women across the country were interviewed. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. You can find the questions and full results of the latest poll here.

The NPR story dissects the survey in numerous ways. For more information click here.

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[…] This blog addressed this issue in August and I guess the American Cancer Society got the message – or maybe they were listening to doctors. It doesn’t matter, what I’m trying to tell you, is they’ve changed their guidelines for women to get mammograms later in life and less often. […]